


Ripples Through Ages

by charactersreadtheirstorysfan



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Gen, No one messes with her crew, Shepard defends her own, although I tried to be fair, and if they think for one second, and just take a different prospective, has been the cause of planets burning, no one at all, one chapter may contain Kaiden Alenko bashing, she has seen planets burn, that having political power is going to stop her, think again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charactersreadtheirstorysfan/pseuds/charactersreadtheirstorysfan
Summary: If they threatened her crew (her family), she would show them why her team survives when whole armies seem to fall





	1. Defending Her Crew

She loves Legion with her whole heart, with her soul. They are good and kind and flawed and she looks at them and thinks  _human_ , in the same way she thinks it of the Quarians, the Turians, the Asari. Something sentient, something worth respect and care.

The other members of her squad don’t seem to think this. They think the Geth are monsters, but indoctrination and a genocide will make you do almost anything.

Shepard always reminds the crew that the Geth drove the Quarians out but never pursued. They remembered the Quarians that defended them in past, those who cared for and protected them. So when the ambassador gets onto her ship and asks her to hand Legion over to experiment on them. As if Legion was not sentient, as if he was any different from EDI or Joker or Garrus - she punches them in the stomach hard enough to have them crumple and kicks them off her ship.

She has a war to win, but if they think she’ll sacrifice a member of her crew without it being absolutely necessary (Ashley, Thane, Mordin) then they have no idea what they are unleashing.

If they hurt the people she loves, she would show them why her crew survives when whole armies seem to fall.


	2. Loyalty and its Absence

The thing about Shepard is that she inspires loyalty. Her crew, her friends, and by the time the Reapers arrive in the system, the Alliance and the Council. They all believe her (and oh, if only the had believed her sooner). She has a light that pulls people in. Her crew is full of misfits. People who have taken too much, who are stooped, trapped, and tired. 

She makes them better because she loves them, because she doesn’t try to fix them, because she would love them even if they didn’t change. This is why Jack stays (and Zaeed, and Thane, and Samara, and and and).

But Kaiden, Kaiden turned his back on her. Accused her. Pointed his gun at her and would’ve used it. And no one ever says it out loud, and Shepard never even thinks it, but her crew wonders if Ash had been saved maybe she would have been more loyal. 

Shepard’s Cerberus Crew believed in her so much they cut ties to follow her. Joker especially feels this way, because he followed her to Cerberus, on two separate suicide missions, and had never been in the field with her. But he knew she did her best to bring everyone home, that every injury and fatality hit her hard. And he knew Kaiden was aware of all of that, Kaiden loved Shepard after all, and he left her anyway. 

So even if she would forgive and forget, Joker swore he never would. He wouldn’t be the reason for her death, not again.


End file.
